[Ascaloth]

Watched the Doremi fansub that was just recently released.....and I'm left thinking "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!"

Before I go into that though, first off, I'll have to say that this is easily one of the best Sola episodes, in terms of emotional delivery. And no, I'm not going to put anything in spoilers; the Doremi sub is out, so I feel absolutely no obligation to extend this courtesy. However, I'll give a warning at least; if you don't want spoilers, skip my post. Now.

Alright, now that's out of the way, my thoughts. Episode 11 set the tone from the get-go; Yorito peeling his pride and joy off the ceiling from the very first second was just a precursor of the heart-wrench that was to come. Like the first sign of farewell it seemed to me, and definitely the sign of things to come.

Aono's demeanour sees a 180 degrees turn-about this round; now she very clearly gives off the vibes of insecurity, feeling unstable about herself and her relationship with Yorito. Very different from the Kaede-madness that came over her just a couple of episodes ago, and honestly, how I wished they went with insecure Aono from the very start; it would have made it that much easier for me to sympathize with her. In fact, I felt for Aono more in this one episode than I did throughout the rest of the series so far; it was an example of how to do things right, but too little too late, if you know what I mean. Really, if she had dropped the Yuki-coldness and showed more emotion even as she was hunting down Matsuri previously, I might have liked her just a little bit better than that....

Yorito too feels like an entirely different character than he used to be, but I guess no one can be faced with the kind of revelation he had to endure, and not be changed by it. While his 'calm' demeanour creeped me out a little (I mean, smiling so much he gave off Itsuki-vibes, c'mon!), it does quite competently portray a certain resignation that is necessary for the whole thing to work, and I can only give a thumbs-up for this aspect.

And Mana.....what can I say? Take everything about the character into account, and I'll have to say that Mana is actually the best-portrayed character of the entire series. From the camaradie to the concern and finally the last meeting with Yorito, Mana undergoes the most consistent character development of everyone in the cast, and Honda-san's efforts certainly did not go to waste, either. There's nothing I don't like about the character of Ishizuki Mana, and it'll certainly be reflected in my Final Critique.

On the other hand, Koyori as a character gave a fairly good reckoning of herself as a character too, but the nature of her character kinda works against her in my opinion. I can understand a young girl like her not wanting to lose a friend, and Koyori's emotionality certainly does not fail in this regard, but what I do question is Koyori's seemingly absolute dependence on Aono. Only way I could ever accept such a dependence from one character on another is if there's a very good reason for it, and Koyori's reasons aren't very good in my opinion; she can go to school, she isn't suffering from some terminal illness that makes Aono the only pivot in her social life. Most girls her age shouldn't be that emotionally deep unless they have had a reason to mature beyond their years, and I don't see any reason for Koyori to develop such emotional depth. So while the Koyori-Aono scenes are touching in their own right, it doesn't totally wash with me. Apologies for that.

And Matsuri seems to be falling behind where character development is concerned; her moe-ness is what got me hooked on Sola in the first place, but as Sola has progressed thus far, she has been displaying a certain one-tone lack of change with respects to her personality that kind of leaves her in the lurch, where my empathy with her situation is concerned. Which makes her sudden transition in character all the more jarring; all of a sudden it feels like Matsuri has become the 'hunter' while Aono begins to look like the 'hunted', where for the entirety of the previous episodes it had been the other way round. Matsuri as a character seems to be drifting further and further from my comprehension, and consequently my preference, as I try in vain to figure out just what the hell she's planning.

Which is why, despite the obvious themes running in the last seconds of this episode, I'm not buying the possibility that it's a final Matsuri-Aono showoff; it would throw all logical sense out of the window, although Nomad has admittedly been less than stellar so far where their handling of plot consistency is concerned. I tend more towards the belief that Matsuri is going to offer the Aono the chance to do something, and the sword is needed as a prop for it; what exactly, I'm not sure. But I don't think it's a fight, especially not if Matsuri said it's something that she agreed with Yorito on; I don't think Yorito would agree to a bloodbath. So yeah, probably something to turn back the clock on, figuratively.

Therefore, would have been a perfect 10 for this episode, if not for the little 'the heck is going on' sequence at the end. As it is, Episode 11 still scores a pretty neat 9 from me on this one.